One day after police shot and killed a man who allegedly opened fire on officers, police yesterday killed another man, who was reportedly armed with a knife, around 6:30 a.m., on the playground of Columbus Primary School at Wulff Road and Collins Avenue.

According to Assistant Commissioner of Police Clayton Fernander, the man who appeared to be in his mid to late 20s, was involved in a shooting just over a week ago.

Fernander said, in the earlier incident, officers responded to the Homestead Street area, where an individual reported that he was shot at by a man known to him.

After receiving information on the matter, officers headed to the Peach Street area, where they saw the suspect, who ran from them after firing a shot, and dropped a firearm.

Fernander said officers recovered the weapon and had been on high alert for the suspect.

“Sometime around 6:30 a.m. [yesterday] morning, acting on information, officers came to this area where they saw the individual, who attacked them, armed with a knife,” Fernander said.

“Officers being in fear for their lives, returned fire and the suspect was fatally shot.”

The coroner visited the site, was briefed, and will continue the investigation, Fernander said.

This is the sixth person police have shot and killed so far this year.

Asked whether officers have become “trigger happy”, Fernander said, “I won’t touch too much on that and I won’t say that the officers are trigger happy.

“The officers are out there to protect you, the Bahamian citizens, first of all themselves, and when their lives are threatened and our citizens, the good people out there are threatened, they will have to go as far as what happened here.

“Every day, the officers’ lives are on the line, whether they are on or off duty, their lives are on the line.

“And as you can see, every community they go in…all of these killings are with the use of firearms.

“So the officers are on the alert and we have the majority of the Bahamian [people] in support of their police, to try to make sure that this country is safe and every pocket of the communities are safe and we are doing just that.

“We want to continue to thank the members of the public who continue to assist the police with whatever information, to try to flush out the criminals.”